What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Stacking Slabs. It's your hobby content alternative. I am Brett. I'm excited to be here. This is a little unusual. I'm usually not flying solo for multiple episodes in one week, but here I am.

As we head towards 2026, there are going to be some opportunities on a weekly basis for me to either have a free day or decide to jump on and share a topic and discuss something card related that I feel really compelled to.

You know, we're in the business of starting brand new shows here on Stacking Slabs, and we've got an incredible array of shows that are going out on a regular basis.

And sometimes there starts and stops to these shows, and sometimes you just decide to jump on.

And that's what I'm doing here on this Thursday. Now on this Thursday slot, this will kinda be a revolving door. Sometimes there might not be anything. Sometimes there might be a branded show.

Sometimes there might be me doing one of these. Sometimes we might share an old episode with some new commentary on it. Might be an opportunity to have an episode of smashing Ben, which I'm really missing those conversations.

I might throw one at you next week. But why I feel so compelled to jump on right now is because we got some news last week that I think is really big news. And it's not surprise news, and it was news we all thought was coming.

I think part of it was we didn't maybe know when unless we were following kind of the day to day licensing and contractual agreements of it all. And that's why I wanted to come on here today and dedicate this episode to the Prism brand.

And I do all this to say, we just got information about Topps basketball, and we are going to be entering or reentering the air air of Topps basketball.

And soon after that, Topps football. And this is something that comes of no surprise.

Again, we knew this was coming. And the hobby is fascinating in a way because we spend so much time digging into what is new, the new shiny object, the new news, what attracts us, all those things.

And sometimes during that process, we don't take time to reflect on what had happened in the past, and I don't wanna do that.

The other reason why I wanted to get an episode on prism out the door is because prism means a lot to me. It is by far and away, not even close by orders of magnitude, the most populated brand in my collection.

If you've been listening to my content for a long time, you know what prism means to me. And so in this episode, I wanna talk about it. I wanna talk about prism and reflect reflect on the run. Prism began as a complete unknown in 2012.

I was not collecting in 2012, but I have heard all the same stories you have heard about. It getting released, it sitting, nobody wanting it. And although the licenses are changing, prism is the flagship of this modern era.

And so I am fascinated as a creator and a collector with understanding the history of a brand and how you go from a complete unknown into the most popular brand.

This has a lot to do with right time, right place, product innovation, collector interest, all of these things.

And I in isolation, I think we recognize these things, but we never really talk about them forever or altogether, I should say. I'm a collector who boomeranged back into the hobby, like many of you.

And little did I know I would stick around this long, and little did I know that I would not only stick around this long, but I would literally leave my job to talk about cards all day.

I I I didn't know that would would be the case. Couldn't have predicted that. And when I think about the decision, the life changes, all of those things, the first cards I think about are prism cards.

They're the first shiny cards that grabbed my attention when I got back into the space. They remind me of the last cards that I collected before my hiatus.

And so what I wanna do here is take all of us on a journey through Prism's lifespan. Talk about the rise, the evolution, the chase. I'll share some personal short stories.

I'll bring in maybe some perspectives from past stacking slabs episodes, and I'll focus on why the parallels matter and how the collector behavior around this brand really shaped how it makes us feel today.

This isn't going to be a eulogy.

You know, fanatics and tops are taking the licenses, but Prism's license chapter is closing, And I felt compelled to honor the impact and explain why it not only matters now still, but why I believe Prism will continue to matter into the future.

I'm not going to probably spend a lot of time talking about record breaking sales and digging in too much in card ladder to sales data. That will be sprinkled in throughout this episode. And I guess some some notes upfront.

There has never been a product that I have dedicated enough attention to from a content perspective. Like, for instance, if you're not in the Patreon group, well, you should be. What are you doing? Go get in there.

But there's only one series in that Patreon group that I've dedicated specifically to a product, and it's Prism. I've need to get back to it, and maybe this would have lived in the Patreon before, but felt like everyone should hear it.

But I started a series called Prism Talk and, I don't know, did 20 or so episodes, but literally every episode was all about Prism. And I could still talk about Prism because it's so nuanced, and I think there's it's so fascinating.

And talking about design, talking about prices, you talk about parallels, you could talk about, the changes year over year. It's just nonstop. So I think about myself as a collector, and I think about all of these things.

But I think one of the interesting components is when you're thinking about prism from obscurity to undeniable and high highly desirable, you can look at, like, 2012 time frame when the when Prism dropped and no one was running for it.

You know, boxes were, like, a 100, a $120, and I did do a filter and card letter to look at Prism boxes and just maybe what the highest sold for.

You have Prism basketball in '21, HobbyBox selling for 18 k. And, you know, you think about how did we get here, why did this happen, what are the components.

And I think at the end of the day, this product has grabbed the hold of one, two, or maybe both of the two most important elements that come alongside collecting interest, and that is the heads and the hearts of collectors.

Let's think about this first for a second.

I love prism. It makes me feel a certain way. I collect prism because it's got a hold of my head and a heart. It's wanted over. First, I love it because there's so much to do with it, so many ways to collect.

I love the way it makes me feel, and maybe some years more than others, but the brand has a hold of me. Then also from the from my head perspective, I believe the Prism brand is a great place to store value.

So it's this interesting component, and it's this cross intersection which you don't necessarily see in a series of cards that span from 2012 to 2025 where you've got cards that attract collectors, and you have cards that attract investors.

And then, obviously, there's gray areas, and there and there's crossover. And that to me is really interesting.

It's really interesting that you can bring a specific, not card, not player, not parallel, a brand to the table that will be a magnet for player collectors trying to collect gold prism runs or investors trying to get their hands on a a a prism black or black finite because they believe that is a train that's gonna continue to head in the right direction.

There is interest from collectors who love the sets and the player runs and all the chases that they're going through who say, you know what?

I'm gonna pick up a guy here or there in this parallel that I don't collect because I believe it's a good store of value.

And if you think about that and you let's just isolate it to prism gold, and we'll spend more time talking about prism gold, but just isolate it to prism gold.

That doesn't happen in other chromium based products from this duration. I don't think ever. I think this is a unique instance, and that's why I want to spend some time to shine a light on it and just figure out how did we get here.

Again, I'll preface this by saying, I own a lot of prism. The doing this episode certainly and reflecting on it or honoring prism could be could be a opportunity to remind you all, if you like prism, the same thing.

But I just wanna disclose that, and you should know that if you follow me. I buy a lot of Prism cards. And here's the other instance, and I asked this to myself.

If there is one card, brand or parallel, in my collection that when I'm consolidating, I hardly ever sell, it's Prism. There's an emotional attachment, and I have been wrestling this with myself.

Why how did we get here? Why do you love this so much? And the instance, I'll never forget it when this triggered in my mind was this is somewhat topical, but then it's also the player is, but this is also somewhat nostalgic as well.

But I'm gonna bring up a player, and he started a a few games in a row for the Minnesota Vikings, and that's Carson Wentz.

Well, Carson Wentz was an Indianapolis colt. Now when I was getting back into the hobby, obviously, the Colts are my favorite team.

And when we I got the news that Carson Wentz was going to be the next quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts, well, I wanted a Carson Wentz collection, so I started buying cards. Well, that ended up not working out quite well.

But I will tell you this, that when I was get selling off the Wentz cards after we he wasn't going to be brought back as the quarterback, The the cards I hung on to still were the his Prism Gold cards.

And I kept asking myself, why am I hanging on to these cards? He's not even wearing Colt stuff. He's an Eagles stuff. Why am I hanging on to this?

And that was the moment where I realized that you could love cards, and the subject of the card could matter less than the card itself. And that was a really powerful moment for me. And so then I started digging in further, like, okay.

Why is this the case? How did we get here? And what I've landed on was when I got back into cards, prism was the brand. And I think about the Luca 2018 Luca. I think about 2019 in Zion.

I think about those elements and just getting sucked up into the excitement and learning about a new brand, learning why it mattered, learning the sets, and there is something inevitably that is happened to me as a collector and an individual, and there's an attachment based on coming back into a space and the prism being the brand.

Now, also, probably what has happened is ever since I have gotten back into collecting, my life has gotten a lot better. My life has gotten turned into me, really sinking my teeth into the hobby, conversations, meeting collectors.

And I get really excited the moment I wake up every morning because I know I get to sit here and do episodes like this and talk about sports cards all day.

And that's very I feel very privileged and fortunate for that. And prism, in my extreme love and passion for this brand was really the catalyst for all of this to happen and take place.

And I didn't know it when it was happening, but I know it now in reflecting on it. So there's a little personal context in why I feel passionate.

And people have asked me, they're like, are you upset or sad Prism's going? And I I think there's a part of me that is, a little sad that this product is not going to continue at the same way that we are used to it.

But then again, there's also some relief. Right? I put a lot of pressure on myself, especially when new releases happen because I know from my Colts Gold Prism run, that is a great time to just go nuts and try to acquire those cards.

And then I also know that if I want cracks at the best to pick cards out of the set or my favorite cards, I should say, out of the set, like Black Finite, the best opportunity to get those cards is when a new Prism product is released.

So there's a lot of pressure that I put on myself with the way I collect in these projects that I'm building to go nuts when the product drops, and there's a piece of me that's very thankful that, especially on the football side after this last football product that I likely won't, end up in that same situation anytime soon.

And I think that's good, and I also think while I have been tackling the Prism product from a collecting standpoint and building out runs and building out collections and representing my favorite team.

There is this desire I have to keep going into although I hope if you open up my case of cards, you'd say, man, that's gotta be one of, if not the best, Colt's Prism collection in the world.

I still feel as a collector, I have so much left to explore and so much left to collect, and that's a really damn good feeling.

When I look and I can see the volume and the quality of my collection, but then also feel a desire to keep building, I think that's that's when you hit a sweet spot in a good place.

So if we rewind the tape all the way back to 2012, Prism was an underdog. You're moving from a behemoth, tops and tops chrome, and this company Panini America is getting the license.

And, you know, when I was collecting before the Panini era, right, my lasting memories are Top's finest refractors and Top's chrome and those sets, and they were larger than life.

And so from a a branding perspective, you're not only introducing a new manufacturer, you're introducing a new brand.

And the way prism entered our hemisphere was from probably the two biggest segments in collecting, which was prism basketball and prism football.

And Topps Chrome and Topps Finest has really served as this flagship brand from a Chromium perspective, and there was a void. And so when Prism came to fill the void, I think the early reception and, again, I say, like, I was not there.

Many of you were, and many of you can probably, you know, confirm or deny this, but I think a lot of collectors and, again, some of this is sourcing from me and conversations that I've had in on stacking slabs over the years is a lot of collectors were cautious.

Right? It's we don't wanna go run to what what is new, especially on day one. And I'm and I'm very fascinated to check out how collectors absorb the new Topps basketball product if they're gonna run and go nuts and start collecting.

And I'm not talking about breakers breaking it and, you know, everything else on the mainstream.

Like, that's gonna happen. I'm more interested in, like, studying and analyzing collectors that I follow and see if they're making that, product and future products part of their collecting.

I think the the core idea out of the gates was we wanna deliver a chromium based product to fill the void.

I'm curious, which I don't know, and perhaps we have an episode in the future with people behind Prism early, which is sounds like a pretty cool episode to me. But as I look at it, it's like, alright.

Let's fill this void. Let's, have a organization around a a a rainbow and an a a way to collect as that was, you know, starting to become a thing, and let's make sure, you know, it has a clean look.

You know, you know now, and we wouldn't be able to know this then, but you know now the influence of the first year set, how what it has on the the hobby. Yeah.

I I think an easy way to say is, like, Panini has decided to do flashbacks to before the license got let go of to make sure that they represented or get paid tribute to, whether it was twenty twelve flashbacks in, you know, mega the the primary Prism product or if it was, you know, Prism Deca.

Like, there was an opportunity that the brand said, okay.

It's time to honor and pay tribute to that, which I think is pretty cool. And it really became because of its consistency. Now there are changes throughout the year, and I like a lot of the changes, and I don't like all of the changes.

But they created a blueprint for how you construct a set, what the parallels look like, and how to motivate us as collectors to partake.

While Prism is the underdog, I think what I find the most fascinating with this brand is that it earned a tremendous amount of collector trust through its repetition, through its clarity, and through its shared language across releases.

And I'm a marketing guy, so I obsess over this stuff.

And this is the stuff that's really, really important when we're trying to think about what is gonna hold value over time. What is are gonna be the sets or parallels that collectors are gonna remember and want and desire?

Well, likely, it's a lot easier for collectors to remember and desire and chase and want certain cards if there is consistency and clarity around those releases year over year.

And I think Prism did a phenomenal job, and it just a great way to look at it. And I think just we'll we'll we'll talk about it, probably in in or we will talk about in further detail, But just look at the goals.

Just look at the goals. You twenty twelve debut basketball. Gold is the the the the top parallel, 10 copies. No black yet. In football, you had the black finite introduced in 2012, but gold remained consistent year over year.

And so that that, like, that example, if you're trying to think of why does this matter still, I think it it is a focus on consistency.

When a set gives a collectors a new visual identity like 2012 did, to me, it's the dawn and the marking of a new era. And, again, when this product dropped, it's like no one probably said, man, this is a new era. Let's go.

We're in the prism era. But you have years go by later when you're in the middle of it. And I'd say, I entered in the middle of the prism era where it took me about a year into it to to recognize, yeah, there are all these products.

There are all these brands. There are all these shiny cards. There's, you know, memorabilia cards. There's autographs.

There's all these different cards, but, like, at the end of the day, based on, again, the intersection of collector and investor interest, it was very easy to understand that we were collecting in the Prism era even if you didn't collect prism.

To go from unknown to unmissable is something. And so when we break down and think about the years, I think it's very interesting to track, like, the momentum. And maybe I'll do a companion piece.

I think a companion piece might be in order regarding layering in values and prices, but, like, I intentionally didn't spend hours in card ladder in this episode because I could have spent hours in card ladder.

I could have gathered all the data points, and I could have done a timeline based on trends of how we got here in big sales.

And like I said, maybe that'll be a future episode. But we the prison brand went from obscurity to leader and leader to flagship and skepticism to dominance.

And I think some observations I've had. The there there is no release drop like the prism release drop. It is exciting for collectors. It is exciting for investors. It's exciting for flippers.

It's exciting for it's exciting for every persona in the hobby because you know there's going to be interest. And whenever there's interest, there's excitements, and there's different layers and way to to cut it.

And it's a just it's like, I think about I don't know why I draw this parallel, to this moment, but whenever I think of, like, the new prism product dropping in whatever sport, I think about, like, jingle all the way in that moment where they find out that, Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger find out that, there's a Turboman or there's potentially a Turboman, more Turboman's at whatever store, and the door's open.

And there's just a mad rush to go try to find the Turboman. I that's how I every time, like, the new Prism product drops and those news, those new releases hit your safe searches, like, dude, I can't I just had it up.

I I can't stop looking at my eBay account and checking, Instagram. And that's fun. That is fun, and that's why I think, like, the event cycle of it.

And I wouldn't even say, like, Panini did a ton of marketing around it. It was just known. It was like, alright. Prism's dropping. Like, let's go. Because it they had the growth and the momentum from us.

We're the ones talking about it on our Instagrams and x and whatever your social platform of choice. We're the one reposting hits. We're the one sharing our pickups, and so the social feeds lighting up is big.

You have the silver prism, which, silver prism PSA 10, which you could say maybe is a commodity card, but it it really becomes a symbol for liquidity in the hobby.

And color prism, special serial number, low print run, copies becomes the identity of this era. So the product serves every lane. Retail rippers, team set chasers, player collectors, parallel collectors, all of these things.

Again, intersection collector, investor, layers over the top, all the different personas. And so over time, the brand becomes the standard, and the market compares it against everything else.

Now you think about the momentum and the climb that was happening with Prism, and then you think about the pandemic boom, and it was like taking a product that was had momentum and injecting it with freaking hobby steroids.

The hobby matures. The brand continues to be the benchmark.

So talked about 2012, and we'll also mention 2013 too because I think you look at those sets and just, 2013 will always be important because in basketball first of all, it's very, very shiny, cool design, but in basketball, it introduces the one of one for the first time.

Then Then you've got kind of this chunk between 2014 and 2018, which is kind of the middle of the road.

And, again, we could get I could we could be here for hours and get really, really nuanced on why these sets began to gain traction and momentum and the changes that were there year over year.

And these are the types of things that I talk about in the Prism Talk episodes in the Patreon where we just get, like, really nerdy in talking about changes and everything.

But I I think we're talking if we're talking about the growth years, so you've got the growth years of this brand.

I think a lot about the players. And I don't know if I've ever really heard anyone talk about this, but I think this is really, really important.

So you have in 2013, in the sophomore campaign of the Prism product, you have the first year of the one of one, which is super important, especially since and I've heard, Chris talk about this on his podcast, the Hochast.

He talked about how we're in a one of one era, which it is a one of one era. I would say it is a one of one era, and that could be interchangeable for it is also a prism era just based on the influence.

2013 basketball. Think about this. Got the one on one, but then you've got a player that has the profile of everything we want as collectors in this hobby, and that is Giannis.

You've got a player that nobody forecasted to be one of the greatest basketball players of all in this era and potentially before it's all said and done, greatest basketball players of all time.

But no there was no hoopla around him because he didn't play at a major university and the international player that we didn't necessarily know about.

And he looked like a a skinny kid who, you know, maybe has potential. And but but that's that's the thing. You have a player that maybe has potential, and you've got a hobby in an industry that's all about potential.

And it's the, it's the exchange of those two ideas that often pass each other and nothing happens. But those two items with Giannis, with prison brand, it was a collision course.

Those two. Boom. You see what Giannis does? MVPs, championship. And if you were one of the early ones thinking and and you you close your eyes and you think of Giannis' card, you gotta think of the 2013 prism shot.

That shot of a young Giannis, Giannis, is undeniable. And so that example of the prospecting and Giannis going above and beyond expectations only helps solidify the brand.

And you can't tell me that in future years, there weren't droves and droves of collectors that were out there or investors searching for the next Giannis.

So you've got that. We're talking about growth years. You got the Giannis year and the influence of that.

Take that and pair it next to twenty seven fifteen football, which you wanna get in the Prism Talk nuance side of things. Isn't it odd that 2017 football is the only year where the rookies are silvers?

There's no base level. And so you've got '27 football, which is undeniably the Patrick Mahomes rookie year. So you've got Giannis, Patrick Mahomes in their respective years.

And, again, we're we see with Mahomes. Wow. A player that a lot of us or a lot of people weren't sure about, a player that did not just jump in and start Sadia. But, boy, when he did get in there, we knew he was gonna be special.

And not only was he gonna be special, but he'd go on to win MVPs and Super Bowls. And so Mahomes has done what Giannis did in basketball, but in football and maybe even more.

I would say even more because Mahomes, not in isolation, but talking about prism, has been, I think, we'll do a if we we did about Rushmore prism athletes, my number one spot would be Patrick Mahomes.

He'd be in the George Washington spot. And so you've got this, and you're seeing this, and you've got a flood of new collectors coming in.

And you've got these stars that people didn't know about, and then they rose to become the best in their respective league. And then the the when you hear the mainstream talking about cards, everyone's looking at Prism.

And those are the cards that are introduced in graphics, and those are the cards that are being talked about by influencers, And those are the cards that are talking being talked about by, people trying to get other people back into the hobby with big microphone.

Prism became the standard. For better or worse, every product started to get compared to Prism, and Prism became the most the lightning rod topic across eras across this era.

Some people didn't like it because the cost went up. Some people didn't care, and they still collected it. No other drop offers the same sort of response. And to me, that is the power of a true flagship.

I think to understand Prism's hold, you really have to understand the colors that define it. And in my opinion, there's no parallel that defines a product more than the prism gold. And let's talk about this.

Everybody loves gold. Gold is just innately a desirable color. It's valuable in our minds. And so you take you go from a TOPS CHROME era where the CHROME refractors primarily out of 50, which, man, back then, that seemed like 50.

There's hardly any to limiting it to 10 and not changing it. No change, start to finish, 10 copies. And 10 copies in this era is when it drops, is accessible, but but also scarce.

And I've been collecting this damn product for a long time now, and I'll tell you what, those 10 copies, as the years pass, it be gets harder and harder to attain.

And I love that about this product. I don't want it to be easy. If I could just go say, hey. I'm gonna collect all the Colts Gold Prism, and I could just go to each marketplace and pick them off. That wouldn't be fun.

It is fun that it sucks to figure this out. It is fun that I'm on Facebook Messenger messaging strangers I don't know for cards of players who didn't even make the Colts team, but for some reason had a prism gold. That rules to me, man.

That makes me excited. You have the influence of a parallel like a gold out of 10 and what that does for player collectors who build projects around gold runs. You've got team collectors who are trying to chase years and team sets.

You've and you've got the conviction across different sports, Basketball values, prism. Football values, prism. You've got WWE coming up. You've got NASCAR coming in, and it just it's it's been it's been really, really fun to see WNBA.

Gold becomes the anchor because gold, while they have gold shimmer and gold ice and all these things, the the flagship gold, though, it is the centerpiece, and it grounds everything.

And I think gold out of 10 works because it's small enough to feel elite, but large enough to occasionally surface.

It's the most accessible grail we have, and I think about accessible grail psychology, and you can dream about it and dream about owning a certain card without being completely delusional.

I had a, conversation in the parallel series with Danny Modest card, collection, And he made mention about, like, if you collect a modern player, all roads lead to prism gold or gold prism.

You might not start there, but you'll end up there. And that's so true. It's so true to see this, and I see people who don't collect Prism eventually end up with a Prism card or two.

And I just think that's fun. And I'm trying not to talk about values, but you it's hard to not do an episode of Prism without talking about Prism from a values perspective.

The LeBron James, no one of one, twenty twelve, sold on golden, September 12 for $793,000. It's not a one of one. It's a one, but it's an out of 10. But when I think about the most important cards of this era, that is a card.

Him and his Miami Heat jersey when he was the heel LeBron, masked LeBron, ripping people's face off, slamming it, winning championships. When I think about that card, that is one of the best damn cards, in my opinion.

I know best. I'm trying not to talk about best, but that is one of the most important, I think, cards of this area. You think about the Curry. You think about the Kobe.

You think about all these cards, man. Think about the Brady. Think about the luck. I mean, there's just there's just so many fun moments in cards. Think all roads leading to gold collecting a certain player, a set is important.

And gold might have the crown, but, like, the black is kind of the myth, and it's the apex of the chase. There's one copy, full stop. You got black in basketball, black in football.

And they've added more one of ones over the year, but it's it's been the product hit in football since 2012 outside of the silly decision to change to a black Pulsar in 2015, yet to change back in 2016.

Sidebar, I do like the the black Pulsar Pulsars.

I think they're really cool cards, but I would have rather have just had it be a finite the entire run. But other than other one of one variants exists, but finite always holds or blacks in basketball holds that top spot.

I can't even I've been on more wild goose chases for black finites than in any other card since I've been back in the hobby.

I've gotten car my car. I've driven to places. I met strangers. I've negotiated for hours. I've spent more money than I probably should, and it's because I love it.

It's because of the design elements, the beauty. It's not the finites, and we've talked about it, but it is you got the glory of the black, and then you've got it just perfected with an aesthetic that is so eye catching.

Own there's no better peak in my collecting than owning a than owning a a black finite of a player that I love. There's something special to me about that one copy and that product and brand that's so special.

Manufactured scarcity works when the card looks special and the story travels, and Black Finite, I think, did both. Prism, I think, did more than just define the chase.

It is united collectors across sports, and I mentioned this. The cross sport consistency builds legacy, NBA, NFL, soccer, UFC, WW, WNBA, some parallel names, same same parallel names, same numbering lodge logic.

There's redesigns which offers a fresh finish, some better than the others. You can debate what your favorite or who what the best is. You got set runs and player runs, and those become natural.

But I think consistent numbering hierarchy is really important, and I'm glad that tops, it sounds like, is being very mindful of that going into the future because I think that is one thing that we should compliment Panini on from a prison perspective.

People want consistent things. I like the consistency of the parallels, but I also like the the freshness of the redesigns. It's kinda like a car model if you think about it.

You think about '20 12, chrome border purity, 2014, full bleed backgrounds, 2018, kind of a modern prism pattern backdrop, 2020, shiny, higher saturation, maybe polarizing, but memorable.

Prism gave us as collectors a shared language, and that language traveled across sports and seasons. And now we face a change. It's not an ending.

It's a handoff. And I just think that's really important. I wanna emphasize that one more point. This brand across sports and across collector groups gave us all a shared language because of its consistency, and let's recognize that.

Let's recognize it. And it's because of this infrastructure that this manufacturer decided to make about this brand or give to this brand. It's because of that, Why we're seeing prices the way we are right now?

Why people feel nostalgic? Why people are running and chasing? It didn't just happen. There isn't just one person on a damn microphone hyping it up. It's a shared mindset.

It is a collective approach, and we as human beings go run all run the same direction when we believe in the same message, and we believe in the same structure, and we believe in that consistency, and that's what prism has done.

So now we're in this changing of the guard era, the next chapter, and the licensing shift, and the light lasting impact, and we're all trying to figure out what this means.

The prism's license run becomes closed. A closed art collectors will study and chase. And I'm I'm in the middle of this episode, and I came with notes, but I I'm I'm already ready for the next episode.

I'm already ready to do another episode on on Prism because the nostalgia is here already. It's not gone. We've lived it for a decade plus, and I think great sets outlive the license on the box.

Think about that. Think about all the great sets. They always outlive the license. Secondary markets write the final chapter. So if you're pissed off or sad that Prism's over with, it's gonna live on, baby.

Secondary market. It will always keep mattering because the projects continue and the stories endure. I am beginning to think of Prism as a hall of famer in its final season.

You savor it, you respect it, and the legacy is the set. So let's close this out. I've been talking too long, but what's crazy of I have so much more to talk about, but I also found a point where it's like, alright.

Let's let's stop this. Prism gave us this era they gave this era kind of the central point, the center.

It taught conviction and clear signals, silver, gold, black. It's connected collectors across sports with a shared design language. It's turned project into journeys that still fuel time in the hobby.

Licenses change, but legacies don't. Pull a Prism card from your box tonight. Line a few of them up across different years and feel it. That is why Prism mattered to me and, hopefully, why it matters to you and why it still matters.

I love Prism, man. I felt compelled that, like, everyone's talking about tops. Let's talk about Prism for a second. Hopefully, you enjoyed this. If you enjoyed this, share it with a damn friend.

Do all the things. I do appreciate you taking time out of your your day to listen to me spend, you know, forty five plus minutes talking about a product that I love. You all take care. Happy collecting. Talk to you soon.